The present invention relates to a method for supplying a sliver from a filled sliver container to a spinning position of a spinning machine by introducing the leading end of the sliver by a manipulator into a sliver supply location of the spinning position and to an apparatus for carrying out the method.
In textile spinning plants wherein the supply of sliver cans from a drawing frame to a spinning machine already takes place automatically with can transport carriages, it is desirable that the leading end of the sliver should also, in a natural further extension of the automation, be introduced automatically from the full can into the spinning box of the spinning machine.
A device is already known from European patent EP 0,348,678 A1 in which the leading end of a sliver is brought to the spinning position by means of a manipulator assembly. The start of the sliver is obtained in that, during the filling of the sliver from a large can into the can standing at the spinning position, the sliver is torn and the end of the sliver filled into the can at the spinning position is brought in front of the sliver entrance location into the spinning position, e.g., in front of the entrance of the condenser, during which the sliver is mechanically clamped. Compressed air is blown at the spinning position above the sliver intake opening into the condenser through an opening provided especially for this purpose in a canal or conduit of the condenser. The compressed air should, on the one hand, produce an injector action for drawing in the leading end of sliver by suction and on the other hand should blow the leading end of the incoming sliver under the condenser roller. There is the danger in this device and this method that the injector action of the compressed air either is too weak to suction in the presented sliver end, which is no longer held, or the compressed air can be so strong that the sliver is blown in an uncontrolled manner into the opening device.